The Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Association urged the FCC to preserve the 4.9 GHz band for public safety, in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 07-100. The filing includes language similar to that in a recent Fraternal Order of Police filing (see 2402120028). “A fragmented, inconsistent approach, allowing varied uses based on location or licensee, has proven ineffective,” the fire chiefs' filing said: “For two decades, this has led to the band's chronic underutilization due to the absence of a unified strategy and economies of scale, stifling both usage and innovation.”

Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark met with FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel about proposed net neutrality rules and their potential effect on network slicing. The proposed rules “create friction for innovation, specifically related to network slicing,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 23-320: “Nokia described the market for slicing, why it is essential at this point in the 5G cycle where returns on investment have lagged, and its critical importance to the business case for 6G.” Slicing will be important to “enabling enterprise cases and providing network solutions for many use cases for which a stand-alone purpose-built network is not feasible,” Nokia said. The Open Technology Institute at New America earlier complained that network slicing shouldn’t be used as an excuse to exempt from the rules any specialized application or service that a mobile carrier delivers (see 2401310046).

The Arizona GMRS Repeater Club opposed Garmin International’s pursuit of a waiver of FCC rules to allow certification of hand-held general mobile radio service (GMRS) devices (see 2310060031). Midland Radio supported the waiver request (see 2402120059). “There are simply not enough [GMRS] frequencies available for the necessary separation between analog and digital transmissions,” the Arizona group said in a filing Monday in docket 24-7: “Our organization has suffered from interference to our GMRS repeater from commercial repeaters transmitting with [time-division multiple access] TDMA digital emissions. Digital transmissions can and do cause co-channel and adjacent channel interference to analog communications.” Other opposition came from a few amateur radio operators. “Digital data sounds are difficult to listen to and would be considered interference to the regular FM users,” amateur operator Jim Logue said. Noting “GMRS has very limited spectrum which is probably well utilized across the country,” he said he's "not sure there is room to introduce digital data.”

The FCC sought comment Tuesday on long-form applications from Quick Current to buy 2.5 GHz licenses in Iowa and Nebraska. Petitions to deny the applications are due no later than Feb. 23, oppositions March 1 and replies to oppositions March 8, said a notice from the Wireless Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics. Under the 5G Spectrum Authority Licensing Enforcement Act, enacted in December, the FCC can issue licenses won in the 2022 auction despite the expiration in March of its general spectrum auction authority (see 2312200061).

The FirstNet Authority and AT&T announced a commitment Tuesday for strategic investments of more than $8 billion over 10 years in the public safety network. AT&T also said it's launching a stand-alone 5G core that will improve 5G functionality “with specific public safety features” and will transition FirstNet’s Band 14 spectrum from 4G to 5G. The authority and AT&T made the announcement at a fire station in Fairfax County, Virginia. They also announced that starting in March, first responders will have “always-on priority and preemption” across all of AT&T’s spectrum and that the network will add 1,000 sites within the next two years. FirstNet said it will expand mission-critical services to include voice, video, data, and location “to complement public safety’s localized, voice-only radio systems with reliable, wireless connectivity.” FirstNet is also upgrading its fleet of deployables with 5G connectivity. FirstNet now covers more first responders than any network and is involved in every major disaster and event in the U.S., said Jim Bugel, AT&T president-FirstNet. “Delivering a stand-alone 5G core will be a game changer,” he said. After 9/11, it took days to establish communications between different agencies at the Pentagon crash site, said William Johnson, now police chief at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall and Arlington National Cemetery. Johnson was a first responder at the Pentagon on 9/11. “Because of the events that day, when I became a police chief … I knew I had to establish communications as our number one priority,” he said. FirstNet “plays a pivotal role” by “providing a secure, reliable, prioritized communications platform,” he said. It is “the nation’s only, and I’m going to repeat, only, public safety broadband network,” said FirstNet Authority Board Chair Richard Carrizzo during the event. “We’re here to launch the next phase of our network,” he added. “Today is a big day -- we’re leaning into the future,” said FirstNet board Vice Chair Renee Gordon. The need for first responders to have “situational awareness comes up daily” at every firehouse, said Fairfax County Fire Chief John Butler. AT&T last month said FirstNet connections hit more than 5.5 million across some 27,500 agencies (see 2401240067).

The recipient of a similar waiver in July, Midland supported Garmin International’s request for a waiver of FCC rules to allow certification of hand-held general mobile radio service (GMRS) devices (see 2310060031). Midland said its GMRS customers include off-roading and outdoors enthusiasts “who often rely on GMRS radios for communications in remote areas.” Relaxing the restriction on digital data transmissions "enhances the ability of these users to connect with each other and track their respective locations, leading to a better outdoors or off-roads experience,” Midland said in a filing posted Monday in docket 24-7. Allowing more frequent data transmissions also “increases the public safety benefits of GMRS,” the company said.

The Fraternal Order of Police supported a proposal assigning the 4.9 GHz band to FirstNet (see 2401190067). “In recent months, there has been a concerted effort by organizations -- many of which are not public safety -- to sow doubt about public safety’s vision for how to reform the 4.9 GHz band,” the group said in a Friday letter to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. These groups “shrouded their mission under the false banner of ‘local control’ and falsely claim incumbent licensees would lose access to the band if it is operationalized for nationwide 5G,” the letter said: Under their plan, a “fractured, decentralized approach would continue -- thus limiting the utilization of the band for the benefit of public safety.” Some of the strongest opposition has come from the recently formed Coalition for Emergency Response and Critical Infrastructure (see 2402060078). Members include the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the National Sheriffs’ Association, the Edison Electric Institute, T-Mobile, UScellular, Verizon and the Competitive Carriers Association.

CTA representatives met with FCC Public Safety Bureau staff about the proposed launch of a voluntary cyber-trust mark for consumer devices. CTA discussed “outstanding questions” and its draft approach that would enable evaluation of “a third-party Cybersecurity Label Scheme or manufacturer’s self-attestation process” in keeping with NISTIR 8425, the National Institute for Standards and Technology’s IoT core baseline. “The Draft Framework defines assessment outcomes, scheme requirements for assessment and manufacturer evidence, and component model implications for each of the technical requirements as well as manufacturer evidence needed for each of the non-technical requirements in NISTIR 8425,” said a filing last week in docket 23-239.

The U.S. has slowed down on providing licensed spectrum for 5G, and on some levels “stopped entirely,” said Umair Javed, CTIA senior vice president-spectrum at the State of the Net conference Monday. Some say “all the low-hanging fruit has been plucked” and “we have to accept tighter times ahead,” Javed said, but he disagrees. He noted that since 2018, U.S. carriers have invested $160 billion in their networks, “the largest investment in our nation’s technology base in history.” Making the lower 3 GHz and 7/8 GHz bands available for licensed use would reverse a negative trend, Javed said. U.S. policymakers should look at ways to “segment” the lower 3 GHz and create “a full-power, licensed opportunity in the 3.3-3.45 GHz range,” he said. The 7/8 GHz band offers “an opportunity for the U.S. to plan ahead and lead in the development of a new global 5G band,” he said. That band has been identified by the ITU “as a future harmonization target” and would let the U.S. “match global deployments planned in the 6 GHz band, meaning we will realize economies of scale and be able to participate in a broader equipment market,” he said.

Verizon is collaborating with Vonage on making network application programming interfaces (APIs) available to developers through Vonage’s platform. “Verizon has been offering APIs for several years, with a broad roadmap for the development of additional APIs and advanced network services ahead,” a Thursday news release from Verizon said. The arrangement “will offer seamless integrations with business applications and productivity tools” and “make some of the most creative and versatile of those network APIs available to the wider developer community,” Verizon said.